Oakmont students won't be idle

ASHBURNHAM -- Students at Oakmont Regional High are hoping their efforts to curb auto emissions will let them install some new eco-friendly water refilling stations for the school.

Members of the Oakmont Environmental Association, an after-school club, have entered their campaign against car idling in the Lexus Eco Challenge contest. Club members say drivers who leave their engines running in park released needless carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, and the problem can be easily avoided with a little effort.

The sixth-annual national contest will announce 16 winners next month. Each winning team will be given $10,000 and the money divided among the club, the club leaders, the school and the adviser.

Junior Kat McDonald, 16, of Westminster suggested the idea in late November of launching a campaign against car idling within the school.

"Our first approach was education," said club president and Oakmont senior Emma Wang, 17, of Ashburnham.

Student made and placed posters around the school, inserted anti-idling messages in the school announcements, handed out bumper stickers from the state that oppose idling and got students and faculty to sign pledges that they will shut off their vehicles when possible. They also sat up a table at lunch to answer questions from students and attempted to get a conversation started about idling around the school.

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Wang said during their research they discovered there is already a Massachusetts state law that imposes fines on drivers caught idling for more than five minutes. They received metal signs and posted them around the front entrance of the school -- a place where idling has always been common.

Students also tested the emissions coming out of the tailpipes of various automobiles in front of the school. They said the wide variety of makes and models made it necessary to average all the cars together when trying to calculate how much the campaign will impact the area.

Senior Jess Del Duca, 18, of Westminster is the club's vice president. She supplied figures from the Hinkle Charitable Foundation, an environmental advocacy group, that said Americans waste 1.4 billion gallons of gasoline in a year with idling engines, which releases 13 million tons of carbon dioxide into the air.

Wang said people need to be aware of the places they usually let their cars idle, such as picking someone up or dropping someone off outside a building, waiting in a drive-thru lane or starting their car in the morning. She said any time the car will be stationary for more than 30 seconds warrants shutting it off.

Club members were critical of remote car starters used during the cold winter months. Some drivers may get wrapped up in an indoor task and leave the engine running for 15 minutes accidentally.

Members of the Oakmont Environmental Association also said they oppose starting the engine to warm up the vehicle when scraping frost off the windows as well. They recommended drivers wait until they're ready to move before they start the engine, even when it's cold.

Faculty adviser Alana Archangelo, who teaches life science at the school, said the club has about $900 it has raised and plans to use it to purchase two Elkay EZH2O refilling stations. These modern water fountains have the normal angled button-operated stream people lean over to use, but can also refill a water bottle while it's being used.

Water bottles of various sizes are placed on a shelf in the back. A sensor will automatically begin filling it with a stream of water and will shut off when it is full or removed. Users do not have to press any buttons to operate it.

Wang said refilling stations will reduce the demand for the water bottles in the vending machines at school. The devices will keep track of their output and display a figure to estimate the number of plastic disposable water bottles saved.

The refilling stations are on sale for $900 a pair right now, but the club needs to come up with an additional $800 to pay to install them both. Wang said if they do not win the contest they will still purchase them and put them into storage until they can come up with the installation money.

Club members have raised money selling craft items like bracelets made from soda can tabs. They also have an account with Terracycle and collect 2 cents for every snack wrapper they turn in.

"That's our cash cow," said Archangelo. She said the school has embraced the program and every classroom has a box to collect wrappers for chips, granola bars, yogurt, along with glue sticks and tape dispensers. Club members spend a lot of hours sorting, folding and stacking the empty plastic wrappers.

The club also runs a compost program from the school lunch to use towards a school garden. Archangelo said if they win the award, some of it will be used to reimburse club expenses.

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